Web Design Mistakes You Should Avoid

A website is a major platform for brand awareness, and can be a great tool for building your online reputation. However, having a website can also backfire on your overall marketing strategy if it has poor layout and usability.

If you’re planning to create a website or intend to reinvent your current one, here are web design mistakes that you need to avoid.

Poor Readability

Having a good interface is not enough; your visitors should be able to read what’s on the website. Good content will all be for nothing if it’s not readable. Choose a good font style and a color scheme that matches it.

Chunks of Text

People today don’t immediately read content—they simply skim until they find what they’re looking for, and that’s when they’ll pay attention. However, scanning through huge blocks of text can be real painful on the eyes, to the point that it can cause readers to go away.

Don’t just dump your content on a page and leave it at that. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, paragraphs, and even images to break huge chunks of text.

Bad Navigation

Good Web design should be intuitive. This means it should be built in such a way that visitors could easily navigate around it. Typically, if users don’t find what they’re looking for in three clicks, they will most likely leave.

If you’re linking through text, make sure that they stand out. Avoid putting dead links and adding multiple links that lead to the same page. That is just useless.

Too Much Going On

Sure, you want to showcase your creativity, but remember that a website is not about you. It’s about the user and helping them find what they’re looking for.

It can be overwhelming to visit a website that has too many images, pop-ups, animation, and widgets. While these can improve the overall look of your website and may even attract attention, going overboard on these extras can be hard on the eyes.

Aside from resulting in a cluttered site, having too many elements on your website can cause slower loading times, and these days, no one has the patience to wait for that.

No Search Bar

Whether it’s a corporate website or a blog, a search bar is one of the most important elements that all websites should have. People go to the Web to find answers and solutions, and most won't have the time to go through each of your Web pages to find what they’re looking for. If you don’t provide them an easier way to do so, you’ll lose traffic.

Background Music

Please. Just don’t. It can be infuriating to open a page only to be surprised when music suddenly blares from your speakers, especially when you’re already listening to something else or if you’re in a place where it would be considered inappropriate. Only use background music if necessary, and when you do, incorporate user controls so visitors can stop or pause the music whenever they want.

Good Web design is anchored on three things: usability, clarity and efficiency. Still, it doesn’t mean that your creativity shouldn't shine through. The key is to create a balance between all these elements. Happy designing!

I produce written content for the Web--from internal webpages and blog posts to marketing materials such as off-page articles, e-books and outreach e-mails. Currently, my projects are on personal finance, health, business, fashion, and beauty products.
I'll be glad to send you samples of my work. Please feel free to message me.